Fine Arts Career Services

As the first Friday of November approaches, we are preparing for The Blanton’s monthly Art Party “B scene”. B scene is a unique event at The Blanton. First of all, it takes place every month, so it is never far from our minds. It also spans the specific departments in the museum, so that almost every department– especially Education, Public Relations, Development, Volunteer and Visitor Services and Special Events– has to work together to make B scene a success. The community also gets involved through the huge numbers that attend and our large corps of volunteers who dedicate their time to helping us monitor the galleries and greet guests. B scene is also unique for its ever-changing program. Each month the party has a different theme with entertainment and activities to match, which can also attract different crowds. For example, the September B scene features Slam Poetry and different activities associated with poetry and art. Slam Poetry has a dedicated following and is an art form in itself, so we loved hosting all of the poets and their fans! Come to B scene this Friday at The Blanton from 6-10:30!!

Check out The Blanton’s website for more information on this month’s B scene! http://blantonmuseum.org/experience_the_blanton/b_scene/index.cfm

This past week provided a bit of a breather I think for my supervisor and the rest of the staff in the Art Department. Even though there are a few odds and ends that we need to work on, the first wave of the Big Move is over! The HRC’s objects and paintings are now safe as construction begins at the FAC.

Seeing as that project was mostly over (for me at least), my supervisor introduced me to a new project: translating information on a set of prints by Avraham Goldberg. The title, artist info, date, and introduction are all in Hebrew, which I can translate as I grew up speaking Hebrew, my father’s native language. Previously, at the HRC I volunteered by translating identifying information on Hebrew and Yiddish books, so this new project was sort of a deja vu experience as I sat leafing through my dictionary and slowly, but surely making headway!

During my first day with the prints, I felt fairly confident as the information presented  was straightforward and easy for me to translate. However I turned to the last page of the suite, and I saw a double sided introductory text. The two scholars who wrote the introduction did so in a sort of elevated academic Hebrew, which is much more advanced than my conversational skills. And so this part of the translation has taken me a few days, and will be an ongoing project. I have translated, with some gaps, most of the first section, and next week I will tackle the next. There are some words and phrases that are beyond both me and the dictionary, and I will definitely be calling up my father next week, bugging him for some answers (he doesn’t know this yet!).

I hope that in the future someone will find this translation helpful in their research. The artist, Avraham Goldberg, is not renown so much in the U.S., but in Israel he is more well known as an artist dealing with Jewish themes, something that many Jewish artists have tried to move beyond.

I enjoy projects that I know will take a few weeks to complete, so I don’t have to constantly be searching for small tasks to do. I come in in the morning, check in with my supervisor, and get to work! Feeling productive makes me feel like I am really contributing to the HRC.

S asked me to design her website better at the beginning of my internship.  I have never studied about websites, so I hesitated a little.  However, I told myself that I should take this opportunity to learn how to design a website instead of saying her that I cannot do it.  I think I have used enough hours of my time on internet to be able to tell which website is well designed and which one is not.  I told S that I need to research of architects and engineers’ websites to learn how to design a professional engineer’s website.  S taught me some good websites of certain architects and engineers, so I had a lot of fun doing a research about them.  Most of their websites were simple and not flashy like a fashion designer’s website.  After doing a research for some hours, I came up with some ideas, such as size of the logo, color and size of font and place of links to jump to other pages.  I sketched images of my ideas on papers to show her my ideas.

Every Monday, my boss, my co-worker (the other marketing intern), and I have a meeting to discuss what was accomplished during the week before and what tasks take priority in the coming week. We have two shows coming up in the next month that are very important in terms of marketing, so at our meeting my boss assigned us large projects to accomplish within the next few weeks. I’m very excited about mine because it involves a good community outreach program, but is still an important marketing strategy for one of our biggest shows – 101 Dalmatians: The Musical. My job will be to try to form partnerships with as many pet stores, dog rescue groups, shelters, and other similar establishments as possible. Apparently, 15 of the real dogs performing in the show were rescued from various shelters and pounds around the country. Many of them were injured, malnourished, or otherwise extremely unhealthy. The staff for the show nursed them back to health and gave them excellent living conditions, and then professional trainer Joel S. prepared them for the show. They are so gentle with the dogs, and are determined to find them permanent homes when the show’s tour is done. There will also be excerpts in each program to inform people of the gravity of the decision to get a dog, as well as information on adopting rescue animals.

I’m sure the rescue groups and shelters I talk to will be very excited. I’ve already emailed about thirty in Austin, and have at least twice that many left to contact. This show could really make a big impact on the animals in the community, and I am so glad I get to be a part of this effort.

You may be surprised to know that working in Special Events involves quite a bit more than glamorous parties and high profile events. A lot of prep work goes into the events themselves, of course, but there is an endless array seemingly minute background details that contribute to the overall support and function of museum events. Many of these tasks lay groundwork for future events, are important because they make sure our information is current, or they improve the department. These jobs are usually time consuming but are not urgent or vital to the success or fail of any specific event. Stephanie and Katy have so much on their plates with important and pressing responsibilities that a lot of my internship focuses on completing background research/tasks for them. Through this, I have the opportunity to see how many levels of work and how much accumulated knowledge goes into creating successful events. I think that one of the reasons that the Special Events department functions so well is because of this emphasis on building a strong foundation of supporting information.

I finished creating a list of potential new clients, and am now working on a list of restaurant recommendations to give to clients who are unfamiliar with Austin and want to go out to lunch or dinner. Writing all of the little blurbs about Austin’s best restaurants is fun and I am relishing the opportunity show my voice through my writing!